Thursday, May 21, 2009

Ok, so Destination Create was awesome! The first weekend of May (which also is National Scrapbook Day weekend!) I packed up my gear (ok, so I spent the better part of the previous week packing up!) and headed out to the Four Points Sheraton in Thorold. I went last year and had such a good time, and got lots done. This year was no different. We had fabulous meals, great goodie bags, I took an awesome class with Caroline of Maya Road fame, and had some great roommates.

The event started on Friday at 11am, but b/c I had to do lunch duty, I decided to wait until JA was home from school to go. So we all went in and dropped my gear off. No tears this year from anyone!! YAY! I found my table, dropped my stuff, and took a look around, did some visiting, and went to supper.  I was sitting with Cathy B., Vanessa I., and Karen T. Behind me were Sherry P. and Cathy M. I didn’t know the other two ladies at the table.

On Saturday morning Vanessa let me borrow her SUV to head to the Fairview Mall for bowling awards for JA. I missed it last year, and didn’t want to miss it again. More on bowling awards later.

Saturday afternoon I took the best class ever!! Honestly, I have taken other classes before, and have never been 100% satisfied. I have enjoyed them, but WOW this class was AMAZING! Caroline , the co-creator of Maya Road flew in from Texas to teach some fabulous classes. I wasn’t going to take any due to the cost, and the no job thing still... but I am oh so glad I took the plunge and got the last seat available! We made a butterfly book made of chipboard and acrylic pages. We had different techniques on several pages – using Maya Mist (similar to Glimmer Mist only better!), painting on chipboard, rubbing stickles on (wow, it gives a totally different effect!), stamping on patterned paper, embossing the acrylic with Tim Holtz distress embossing powder, and using ribbons and lots of chipboard embellishments! After the class time flew by, I went back and started working on my book. On Saturday night I had it completed! I do want to add a teensy bit of journaling to it, and some ribbons to the jump ring to make it totally complete... but that will come. I will post photos soon! The product we got in that pkg was also beyond amazing!! We needed 5 chipboard letters, she gave us the whole tin, we needed a few little bling flowers, again, the whole tin! We got yards and yards of ribbons, several patterned papers from Pink Paislee, whole packages of chipboard scrolls, and then some!! It was certainly worth the price, as the value of the product was beyond wow!! So glad Karen talked me into the class (you know, twisting my slightly rubbery arm LOL).Friday night we went up to the hospitality suite and had a little surprise 40th birthday party for Patti. Several of the ladies from the Nook/Nook boards made a 4x4 chipboard coaster for her, and it turned out so beautiful!! Everyone put such efforts and each one was a work of art. She cried. Mission accomplished ;) LOLI stayed up WAY too late both nights, and suffered for it for the next few days, but it was all so worth it!! I got started on my ‘secret project’ , did a page in our Florida album, and did a page in the Port Weller School album as well.

All in all, a fabulous retreat, and I cannot wait for next year!!!

HUGE thanks to Barb, Patti and Elia for putting on a fabulous weekend!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Bowling awards and Awana awards, all in the same week. April 29th saw Zachary and Sophia finishing their school year bowling league. After lunch duty I met up with Grampa, kids and Michael at the bowling alley. The kids got a snack of hotdogs, chips and a drink, oh and their two tim bits! LOL! Each team got a trophy for participating, and they had awards for high single for a girl and for a boy. I’ll have to go back and look at the pictures and trophy’s to see who won what! The kids have such a good time at bowling, and *I* love it b/c it gives me an hour or so after lunch duty to come home and rest or get things done that I can’t do while the kids are underfoot.

That same night we had our Awana awards potluck. It was extremely well attended!! We ended up having to set up extra tables, as more folks than we thought came! Lots of good food, and fellowship was had. Reid’s family came, Heather’s Family, Kendra’s family (all families we introduced to AWANA). Each group sang a song or two, and said some Scripture.

Here are the Cubbies and Sparks singing "Peter, James and John in A Sailboat" and "My God is So Big!"

Sophia graduated from Cubbies this year, getting her 2nd book award ribbon, attendance award, Sunday school award, and she was the Clubber of the Year!! Way to go Sophia! She is beyond excited to be moving on to Sparks in September!

Zachary finished his first year of Sparks. He got his first year book award, Sunday school, and attendance awards. I am SO impressed with my son this year!! He learned to read, and read well, in school (and at home!) and that helped immensely with the learning of his verses. He has a great memory, which was proven when he could remember verses from months previous! Way to go Zachary!! (sorry, no good photos of Zachary!)

JA finished her first year of T&T (Truth & Training). After much prodding, she also finished her book. I think she did the last 2 full discoveries in 3 weeks time!! Maybe she’ll remember that for next year and work a little every week... there is more in the 2nd year book, so I may start to remind her in September of that! LOL She got her first book award ribbon, Sunday School and attendance stickers. Way to go JA!!

JA’s friend Kendra also put the push on at the end of the year and got her book done! Way to go Kendra! Reid also worked hard this year, but did not complete his book. He can continue to work on it next year. HOWEVER... he did get two awards the other girls didn’t get – perfect attendance, and Clubber of the Year!! Way to go Reid!

We are so pleased to be involved in the Awana program. I did it as a child (Sparks on up to the end of grade 8). I have my awards still! LOL The club has changed quite a bit since my day, but it has only improved and stayed relevant to the kids. Michael and I are both Sparks leaders, and will continue in that roll next year.  It’s nice to have a break, and for the first time in YEARS we have NOTHING to do on Wednesday nights!! Since before we got married we have had youth, or Awana, or soccer or something going on Wed nights... it’s almost weird... almost. We are enjoying the midweek break.

On Saturday, May 2nd, JA had her bowling awards. I zipped in from the retreat to attend. I know that next year I will not come right away for 10am!! They bowled glow in the dark bowling for an hour or so before they moved on to eating and awards. It was loud. I hadn’t had much sleep the night before. LOL She enjoyed the glow bowling a lot! After that, they had pizza and then awards. JA’s team came in 4th place overall, which isn’t too bad considering two of her team were new to ten pin bowling this year. Julie-Anna was the bowler of the year for her division, as she bowled 106 pins over her average at the tournament! Way to go JA!! The girls all did well this year and had oodles of fun. However, we are also enjoying the break of NOTHING happening on Saturday mornings... leaving us free for camping and visits to Muskoka! 

I am finally getting to posting some blog entries I wrote last week! LOL!

Aren’t laptops great? I’m sitting here at Niagara Motors getting my free oil change. They called several weeks ago, trying to lure us back to their service department. Michael said we’d probably not be back. They asked what they could do to bring us in, would a free oil change do it? Of course, free always is the best kind of service! We needed an oil change anyway, so why not?! So here I sit, wishing I could connect to the ‘net and post to my blog, and check on a few things, but alas, no WiFi here. The network is not secure here, but you have to have a login to get anywhere. Drag. Oh well, Word is just as good to get things done that I need or want to get done in the next 25 minutes.

This is our second trip to a dealer with our van. Last week it was in to John Bear. ..to the tune of $414.00. Last year sometime, probably early Spring, I broke the window switch for the driver side door window. No up. No down. Just annoying and hot. The passenger side switch on the driver door worked, but that’s it. I thought we could live with it. Spring got warmer, but not enough to warrant the air conditioning. Then I went through a drive through. What a pain!! So we lived like that for over a year. Our new neighbour is a retired mechanic. He got us a new switch at the wreckers. Michael installed it. WHOOHOOO.... the window went down. UGH.... the window would not go back up! We thought a window stuck up was bad, a window stuck down is oh so much worse... and it rained. So we lived with plastic on the window at night to keep out rain and bugs... and drove FREEZING cold as it was too flappy having the plastic on the window. So we took the van to John Bear. Another mechanic told us it was the motor, but it turns out it was the switch – defective from the wrecker. So we got a new switch, they fixed some wiring, and we are good to go!! Old habits are hard to break tho, and when someone came to talk to me through the window my automatic reaction was to open the door! LOL!

We are heading to Ottawa for the Tulip Festival this Friday. The oil change was WAY past due, so we are gearing all up to go. It should be a great time... we’ll take in the festival, visit with family, the men are going to see Star Trek, the girls will do their hair. We are going to go to Hull, Quebec to the Museum of Civilization where they have an amazing children’s museum. We’ll go with our relatives, and meet up with some friends and their children as well. Should be a GREAT day! This is our 9th Tulip Festival. We went the first time when JA was only 7 months old, and have not missed a trip since. We have been twice for other occasions (Canada Day 2000, and for Mark and April’s wedding in August of 2001.) The kids would not hear of missing it this year. We are going to drive down (over? Up?) through the USA, and do a little bit of shopping. We have to have passports starting June 1, so we’ll try to get as much in over there as possible before then!! LOL

OK, I think I’ll post another blog entry about our Mother’s Day scenic trip. I still need to post about Destination Create as well!! :)

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! It's just a little out of the way place where I talk about life, the kids, and Stampin' Up! I'm so glad you joined me today! A bit about me... I'm wife to Michael (04-04-98), Mommy to Julie-Anna (8), Zachary (5) and Sophia (4). I'm a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, who loves to scrap and stamp. I'd love to have you join me one evening (or a morning starting in September on Mon or Tues!) to do some scrappin'!!

About Me

I'm a Stampin' Up! Independent Demonstrator. I teach classes, hold crops, and events! I'm a Stay At Home Mom (and wife!) with three kids, and the most AMAZING husband ever! I volunteer at church and at school, I belong to Curves and TOPS and I love doing it all!